These four elements are the essence of a spiral of learning that can begin with any one of the four elements, but typically begins with a concrete experience. He named his model to emphasize its links to ideas from John Dewey, Jean Piaget, Kurt Lewin, and others writers of the experiential learning paradigm. His model was developed predominantly for use with adult education, but has found widespread pedagogical implications in higher education.

Dr. Kolb is renowned in educational circles for his learning styles model and its assessment tool, the Learning-Style Inventory (LSI). His model is built upon the idea that learning preferences can be described using two continuums: active-reflective and abstract-concrete. The result is four types of learners: active-abstract (converger); active-concrete (accommodator); reflective-abstract (assimilator); and reflective-concrete (diverger). The LSI is designed to determine an individual's learning preference. The LSI and other tools are more completely explained and available at Experience Based Learning Systems, Inc. (EBLS).